ACTION ALERT
Help Protect Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula
11/15/97
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
One of the center's of biodiversity in Central America is in spiraling
decline. The Arborea Project Foundation and Rainforest Information
Centre ask for your help with letters to protest the situation. If you
haven't already, check out Rainforest Information Centre's web page
at http://forests.org/ric/
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Help Protect the Osa Peninsula
Source: Arborea Project Foundation
Status: Distribute freely with accreditation to Source
Date: November 10, 1997
COSTA RICA
Help Protect the Osa Peninsula
According to the Arborea Foundation, Costa Rica has the highest
deforestation rates in Latin America. The country's Osa Peninsula
contains the most biodiverse forests in Central America, and so it is
encouraging to see that a three-month moratorium on further
destruction in the region was imposed in August. The following Action
Request comes from Costa Rica's
Arborea Project Foundation.
After denouncing by all available means the fast and extensive
deforestation in progress in the Osa Peninsula, the local ecologic
organisations have seen their many years' efforts and sacrifices
rewarded by a measure that, though incomplete and inadequate,
sanctions the government's new awareness of the actual situation. The
destruction of the rainforest and of the relevant ecosystems is the
normal practice in Costa Rica, a nation that holds the lamentable
record of being the Latin-American country with the highest rate of
deforestation.
Deforestation in the Osa Peninsula is a particularly serious course of
action because it affects an area blessed with the highest
biodiversity in the whole of Central America. The suspension of any
felling, handling and transportation of trees throughout the Osa
Conservation Area for a period of three months as from August 16 1997
is once again an insufficient and strongly demagogic measure, aimed at
securing the approval of the conservation organisations in view of the
forthcoming elections (February 1998). At the same time, such measure
is an attempt to give an ecological tinge to an administration which,
in the past four years, has certainly not distinguished itself for
sensitivity and efficiency in the domain of conservation.
The temporary stop to deforestation has the declared purpose of
enabling the forces in the field to define an integral development
program of the area, capable of reconciling the necessity of
maintaining this natural heritage (unique in the world) with a
reasonable degree of exploitation in favour of sustainable development
of the civilian community. The best idea emerged during the
preliminary debates has been the setting up of a sawmill run by a
consortium of forest owners, thus enabling them to multiply their
profits resulting from the felling of trees.
Knowing, as we do, the Costaricans, we can only figure out that the
above arrangement will result in a double felling = double earning
equation.
The Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica, called upon to assess the
parameters regulating the felling of trees, has made an amazing show
of demagogic shortsightedness by fixing a minimum diameter of 60
centimetres for all 500 species of trees existing in the area. Not
less ludicrous has been the method used for establishing such a
parameter. Mr Juvenal Valerio of the Instituto Tecnologico de Costa
Rica, the forest engineer charged with the above task, when questioned
about the method, candidly replied "It's a size pulled out of my
hat!!" So much for the extensive, time-consuming and expensive (for
society) research implemented by the illustrious institute! Once again
we are faced with a demagogic decision that covers up big
manipulations and schemes devised for ensuring high profits to the 270
sawmills of the country, with the purpose of authorising a disorderly,
wild exploitation of an irreplaceable natural resource, with no
consideration given to the times required for regenerating the
arboreal canopy, the whole epiphyte system (such as orchids and
brolelias), and of an endemic wildlife typical of the rainforest upper
belt.
What You Can do
SAMPLE LETTER ( Adapted by Rainforest Information Centre)
Al Senor Ministro de Ambiente y Energia
Dr Rene Castro Salazar
S. Jose de Costarica
Fax: +506 257 06 97
Your Excellency,
I am greatly encouraged by the news, given to me by the Arborea
Foundation, that you have placed a moratorium on the destruction of
forests in the Osa Peninsula. I congratulate you on this courageous
and farsighted move.
However, a three-month moratorium is by no means adequate to achieve
lasting preservation of what will become an increasingly attractive
tourist destination. Moreover, I view with some concern the decision
that trees as small as 60 centimetres in diameter may be felled in
future. This decision needs to be reviewed as a matter of urgency.
In view of your commitment to the preservation of this area, I wish
you success in the upcoming elections and hope that you are able to
continue protecting the Osa Peninsula in the future.
Yours sincerely,
Source: Guiseppina Montanara - Guilio Ranalli
Arborea Project Foundation
Boca Taboga, Peninsula de Osa
Costa Rica
tel: +506 786 65 65
fax: +506 786 63 58
http://www.greenarrow.com/travel/arbor.htm
Postal address: Ap 65 - 8150 Palmar Norte de Osa, Peninsula de Osa,
Costa Rica Italian address: fax: Mr. D. Cuppini +39 11 901 80 55